This invention relates to the field of game playing and more particularly to the field of games that are played with the aid of wireless communications devices, such as cellular telephones, personal digital assistants, or other portable communications devices that have features for connecting over a wireless network with a land-based gaming server.
The proliferation of wireless communications devices in the 21st century has been accompanied by ever-advancing sets of features that are available on such devices. Whereas the cellular telephone was originally designed for two-way voice communication, such phones are now typically available with software and hardware features that include a multitude of other capabilities, including sending and receiving email, capturing, storing, transmitting and viewing digital photographs, Internet access, media presentations, and even games. Patents describing games using wireless devices include the following, all of which are incorporated by reference herein: U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,800,029; 6,793,580; 6,554,707; 6,530,841 and 6,524,189.
The present inventors have appreciated that it would be useful for game players in a wireless context to know whether their fellow game participants, or would-be participants, are “unreliable” or have a tendency to be a “quitter”, i.e., a player participates in games initially but later quits the game prematurely during the course of the game. The present invention provides a system and method for recording instances of game players prematurely leaving a game and also providing a ranking (e.g., indicia, rating or score) related to reliability that is available to all the players so they can determine, in advance, whether particular players should not be included or invited to participate in a future game due to their past history of unreliability. The known prior art does not address this need.